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F4U-1D Brooklyn Butcher VMF-512 USS Gilbert Island, July 1945


1to1scale

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I managed to get the main fuselage and wing as finished as possible without painting. I made a couple dummy mistakes, since I was omitting the landing gear, I was skipping past a few steps, however, I also skipped the step where you have to drill a hole for flaps up or down, and I also forgot the rear wall of the main gear bay, which also doubles as the brace between the top and bottom wing. Luckily, the flap will hide the missing panel, and I was able to take a good guess and I got the holes drilled correctly. I now have to finish detail painting the cockpit and pilot, that should allow me to close up the fuselage and join the wing.

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This build is moving much faster than I expected. I was originally planning to do this build while i was out for knee surgery in a few weeks, but things fit so well, its just falling together. I suspect it might be done before my surgery. GSB aircraft are so simple to paint. I may do some very minor chipping and scratching.

 

I also started painting the pilot last night, I will get some pictures tonight. Last night was mostly primer and basecoats, and some research on late war pilot uniforms. The Tamiya pilot is more of a late war pilot, even though it is the same pilot in all the kits, it is not really correct for the birdcage Corsair. There are some aftermarket pilots for the early, but there is a VERY nice Pappy by Ultracast for the birdcage. 

 

More to follow, I will get some pics posted tonight of the cockpit and pilot.

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I'm getting there, slowly, but it's coming along.

 

I started the night before by sanding, scraping, and laying on a coat of white primer. I then sanded a few problem spots and put on a little more primer, then finished with a coat of light buff for his flight suit and let it all dry overnight. 
W8fRkcP.jpg

 

I came back today and added highlights on his flight suit, painted the face and eyes, then painted the helmet and goggle strap. Went back and painted the life vest, parachute pack, and gloves. More work to follow....
l4Xr7N2.jpg

Edited by 1to1scale
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Nice work! Not enough figure painting going on around here. Nice to see someone else taking the chance. Sort if you said above - is this the kit figure? I was very impressed with the detail of the molding on the figures in my Tamiya Mossie

Edited by Bstarr3
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I spent most of the weekend going crazy. I managed to get the whole cockpit covered in barracudacal stencils. I started with one and a half sets, I screwed up several decals by my own stupidness. Two decals melted, I accidentally dipped them in airbrush cleaner instead of water.  :mental: I was getting despondent, but I had a couple sets show up from barracuda saturday afternoon that saved the day. It took 3 sheets to get it done, but it is done now, I learned a few things, which leaves me with one whole sheet for my birdcage, plus random other stencils for my Dauntless, Wildcat, and Hellcat. Looking at it this morning, it turned out surprisingly well. these decals and Microsol work amazingly well together! I will take detailed pictures of the cockpit before I close it up, because a closed canopy and pilot figure will hide most of it!  :hmmm:  :mental:  :BANGHEAD2:  

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Great kit and figure looks great. Will be following with interest. Personally really enjoy Montex masks too.

Thank you, and yes I have been using Montex for a while now and prefer them over decals, My Ki-84 Frank was entirely painted, no decals at all, not a single cut was made in the decal sheet! Painting with masks works well for some kits and I try to use them whenever possible.

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Looks great! Nice work on the figure

 

pilot looks good!

Thanks! This was the first figure I have painted in 35 years, I spent a lot of time watching videos and studying the Navy uniforms before I started. There are still many areas I can improve on, need to do better face painting, also, I am not happy with the wash, I think I need to use darker and lighter colors for the wash, not happy with the medium brown all over, and even though I painted highlights on the figure, I could have done better with that. I am still planning on doing a Dauntless with full crew, gear up, dive flaps open, and bomb swinging down. Hopefully that crew will end up looking better.

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Thanks! This was the first figure I have painted in 35 years, I spent a lot of time watching videos and studying the Navy uniforms before I started. There are still many areas I can improve on, need to do better face painting, also, I am not happy with the wash, I think I need to use darker and lighter colors for the wash, not happy with the medium brown all over, and even though I painted highlights on the figure, I could have done better with that. I am still planning on doing a Dauntless with full crew, gear up, dive flaps open, and bomb swinging down. Hopefully that crew will end up looking better.

Cant wait to see that!  The quality of molding on the figure makes a huge difference in how good of a paint job you can get.  The figure on my Tamiya Mossie came out excellently, if I do say so myself, but it's because I was starting with such a beautifully detailed figure.  Honestly the best IM figure I've seen.  The Tamiya mustang pilot, on the other hand, kind of sucks in terms of detail, and my painting result with that one was much less impressive. It looks like this Corsair pilot is more towards the latter category than the former.  It's hard to paint crisp detail when there's not much there to begin with.  I do like your guy's eyebrows, though.  Nice touch.  

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With "most" kit figures, some time with a blade and scriber will clean up the details and sharpen the edges.

Im not a figure painter, but each one I do gets better and its a long climb skill wise.

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